


Just One Bite

by CelticAurora



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, And an ungodly amount of vampire puns, Lots of vampire stereotypes, Mentor/Student Relationship, Multi, Sexuality Crisis, Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:51:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4109707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticAurora/pseuds/CelticAurora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with Charles d'Artagnan exchanging glances with a pale, handsome stranger across a deserted bar. And it doesn't stay that simple.</p>
<p>d'Artagnan finds himself torn from his quiet life of cubicle work and Chinese take-away when a beautiful woman breaks into his apartment and tries to tear his throat out. When she's stopped by the man d'Artagnan met at the bar, he discovers that there's a world hidden from his boring human existence: A world of vampires, of rivaling covens. Of a previous marriage, caught and torn on the dividing lines between two covens. And of Athos, Aramis, and Porthos, three vampires learning to love the modern world.</p>
<p>But the price of that world is high. And d'Artagnan doesn't know if he's willing to pay it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Matter of Taste

**Author's Note:**

> Christ, another fanfic. My own stories are going to be the death of me, I tell you.
> 
> Inspired by conversations I had with [comehitherashes](http://comehitherashes.tumblr.com) because we just can't get enough of our favorite Musketeer as a vampire. Athos, we concluded, would simply by the best judgmental vampire. 
> 
> Special thanks to comehitherashes for the betaing!

It was half-past eleven when d’Artagnan realized the bloke down the bar was watching him.

He was fairly new to the city, and, as such, hadn’t really been getting out much. But while a normal night would have found him dozing on his sofa with an empty carton of take-away Chinese on the coffee table, it was a Friday, and as he’d been putting on his coat, a couple of the other guys he worked with had asked him if he’d wanted to come have dinner and a few drinks with them.

Dinner had been a casual affair at a local Italian place - they’d almost done Chinese, but d’Artagnan had quickly vetoed that - but the drinking was where things got interesting. While having a bit of a heated debate about the best bars in town over plates of spaghetti and baskets of breadsticks, one of the blokes suggested The Garrison. This had silenced pretty much the entire table, much to d’Artagnan’s confusion.

“What’s that?” he’d asked curiously. “Is it a bar?”

“Yeah, but...no one really goes there,” Matthew, who worked three desks down from d’Artagnan, answered, poking at his eggplant parmesan with his fork.

“It’s...kinda old,” Sean said, his voice familiar from working on the other side of d’Artagnan’s cubicle.

“And, well, no one really knows what’s in some of those bottles behind the bar.” This comment came from James, who worked on the other side of the office and hadn’t really said anything more to d’Artagnan than a passing hello in the kitchen. “The barkeep only serves them to certain people. Always the same crowd there, too, all a bunch of pasty-looking fucks. I don’t think they ever go out in the sunlight.”

To be honest, this all sounded very interesting to d’Artagnan, although he chalked it up to one too many mystery novels that made it all sound so interesting. Likely, The Garrison was just as normal a bar as any other, albeit one that might have attracted a strange clientele.

Somehow, despite the arguing, The Garrison won out in the end, and so, the group of men had tramped over there. It was small, and maybe a bit cluttered-looking from the wooden chairs and tables that were scattered across the room, leaving no space for anything resembling a dance floor. But there was something rustic, even a little charming, about the rickety old tables with their small lanterns, lit by actual candles and not running on batteries.

d’Artagnan had been waiting at the bar for a few minutes, for the next round of drinks to be ready, when he’d noticed he was being watched. The watcher was a man seated at the far end of the bar, practically against the wall, with a shot of something dark-red in front of him. His head was tilted down, so he was peering at d’Artagnan through a mop of brown hair that, despite looking like it was in desperate need of a trim, somehow still looked good on him. Slender pale fingers toyed with the rim of the shot glass, making like he was going to pick it up although he never did.

He had glanced down for a minute, but then, glanced back up - this time, meeting d’Artagnan’s eyes. His were a stormy blue-gray, and had a sort of agelessness to them. He only looked about thirty or so, but there was something in his eyes that spoke of centuries. Even though d’Artagnan felt a little unnerved by the man’s staring, there was something about his eyes and what he could see in them that made him want to walk over there and talk with the shaggy-haired man until the sun came up, hanging on his every word.

“Oi, Charlie!”

And just like that, the spell was broken. The man looked down, and d’Artagnan glanced to his right to find that James had come up next to him and was leaning on the counter, looking a bit pleased at seeing he’d ruffled the boy’s feathers a bit.

“James, my name isn’t Charlie, it’s Charles,” d’Artagnan said a little irritatedly. “Also, I hate being called Charles.”

“Well, if your last name wasn’t so difficult to say, I’d call you that. Stupid Frenchie,” James said.

“I’m like, one-quarter French, shut up." 

“Whatever. You getting those drinks or what?”

“Yeah, just...waiting on them,” he commented, just as the bartender put the drinks down in front of him. The bartender was something of an interesting character himself; though he and d’Artagnan were probably about equal in height, there was something about the largeness of the man that made him feel small. Maybe it was the fact that the bartender looked like he could bench d’Artagnan’s scrawny self without even breaking a sweat, or the mean-looking scar that cut over his left eye. He looked at d’Artagnan expectantly as he set the drinks down.

“Oh...thanks,” d’Artagnan stammered.

“No problem.”

D’Artagnan gathered the drinks, then stopped, glancing uncertainly at the tray. “...there’s an extra one.”

“Mm?”

“I only paid for six drinks, but...there’s seven.” And the extra one appeared to be the very same thing he had ordered, a Jack and Coke. The bartender merely flashed a smile that was both brilliant and a bit dangerous.

“Oh, yeah, threw in an extra one for you,” he said offhandedly. “You could use it, lad, you’re skin and bones.”

“Oh...thanks.”

“Yeah, thanks,” James said, clearly not as interested in their conversation. “C’mon, Charlie, the lads are about to start a riot.”

“I told you,” d’Artagnan muttered as James practically dragged him back to the table. “I hate being called Charlie…”

* * *

“You were staring at ‘im, weren’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Athos didn’t even look up. He didn’t need to look up to know Porthos was standing in front of him, pretending to clean the shot glasses but really just sort of glaring down at him.

“The hell you don’t.” Porthos shook his head. “You were lookin’ at that human kid.”

“He’s new around here,” Athos remarked, finally looking up, still toying with the glass in front of him. “It’s not often we get new people around here. Or living people, for that matter. I think they tend to avoid this place.”

“Dunno why. It’s not that obvious, is it?”

Athos’s response was cut short by the door being thrown open with a flourish. The bar - which was barely even a quarter of the way full - went silent immediately for the figure that strode his way in, swinging his black-leather-clad hips with a rock star’s swagger, tossing back his mane of curly, dark hair. Athos rolled his eyes, knowing that Porthos wouldn’t see it. Porthos was too busy watching their boisterous newcomer with the rest of the bar.

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

No one’s gaze left Aramis as he sauntered across the room. He ran a hand through his hair, his shirt riding up slightly to bare a strip of golden skin. The effect was magnetic, even on Athos, who had long thought himself immune to Aramis’s charm. For some - hell, for many in the bar, regardless of whether they were into blokes or not - the attraction to Aramis could have been chalked up to his physical appeal. He was handsome, painfully so. He had an easy smile and an ass that wouldn’t quit and eyes whose gaze was like a laser right to the crotch. But to Athos, it went beyond how handsome Aramis was. What really drew Athos to Aramis, what kept him around after all these years and all the times he wanted to punch Aramis in the face and walk away from him forever, was his charm.

Aramis threw himself onto a barstool next to Athos with a wink for both him and Porthos. “Well, evening, gents. This place looks almost lively.”

“It’s the blokes in the back,” Porthos said, jerking his head in the direction of the group that had come in - which included Charles or Charlie or whatever his name was, since he hated being called either of those, apparently. “They’re, ah...livenin’ the place up.”

“Did you really just..?” Athos shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingertips. It was at this moment - and every moment that Porthos indulged in his so-called humor - he really missed being able to get drunk.

Aramis, however, was clearly amused. He smirked, reaching over the bar counter to grab himself a glass, holding it out to Porthos. “You know what I like, love.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Porthos took the glass and headed down the counter. “Make sure Athos don’t take off with that Charlie bloke.”

“I would never,” Athos called after him, wishing to whatever the hell he was supposed to believe in - because it almost felt a little sacrilegious to continue to call out to God - that Porthos had had the sense to keep his mouth shut, because now, Aramis was looking at him with raised eyebrows and a growing grin and Athos knew he was completely and utterly screwed.

“A Charlie bloke? Well, now, I’m interested,” Aramis murmured. “Is it that group over there?”

“Maybe.”

“Which means yes,” Aramis announced gleefully. “Now, which one is it?”

“It’s not what you think, and, even if it was, it’s none of your damn business.”

Aramis pouted - damn it, Athos hated it when he pouted. It just made it harder to tell him no. “Oh, well you’re no fun. No matter, I bet I can figure it out.”

Aramis turned to the group over at the back booth, watching them curiously. A moment later, he grinned, the type of grin that said he was definitely on to something. “Oh, I bet I know who it is, it’s that one with all that hair. He keeps looking over this way.”

With a noise resembling a stifled groan, Athos looked up from his drink. Sure enough, What’s-His-Name was looking their way, looking more than a little gobsmacked. Aramis gave him a little wave, and he blushed, realizing he’d been caught staring, and looked back at the table. Aramis snickered. “He’s pretty good-looking. You fancy him?”

Athos struggled not to scowl. “You’re blowing things way out of proportion.”

“Oh?” Aramis pursed his lips.

“We met eyes for maybe two seconds. It was nothing.”

“Okay, well...maybe you don’t fancy him in _that_ way,” Aramis mused. “Fancy him in another way?”

Athos frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, I mean, he’s young, looks pretty healthy, probably goes to the gym and eats his vegetables and all that. He’d make a great meal…”

“If we were allowed to do that, which we’re not,” Porthos cut in, returning with Aramis’s glass, now filled with the same thick, dark-red fluid as Athos’s. “Treville forbade it, an’ he’d have our heads if he found out we were breakin’ the rules. You remember what happened to Marsac, yeah?”

Athos winced - not just at the mention of their former friend, but also at the look that crossed over Aramis’s face at the name. It was something of a low blow, to bring up Marsac, but, unfortunately, Porthos had a point.

“Sorry,” Porthos apologized. “But rules are rules, an’ I’d rather be with Treville than against ‘im.”

“Besides,” Athos added in an attempt to defend himself, “even if we were allowed, he’s not really to my taste.”

“ _Really_?” Aramis looked at him, incredulous.

“What? Are my personal preferences so repulsive to you?”

“No, not that, I don’t give a shit about that! He’s not to your _taste_? Did you really just make a vampire pun?”

Athos schooled his expression to neutrality, boredom even. “I did no such thing.”

“Liar, I was standin’ right here,” Porthos said, raising his eyebrow in amusement. “You made a vampire pun.”

“You two are insufferable,” Athos grumbled, watching as two of the gents from the group in the back corner approached the bar again. “Porthos, you’ve got customers. Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, doing your job?”

“Rude,” Porthos said, though he strode down the bar to help his customers. Aramis, meanwhile, shook his head, drained his glass, and stood up.

“Well, since you’re being no fun over here, I’m going to go find more entertaining people to talk with.”

“Fine.” Athos shrugged. “Shout if you need me.”

“Why would I need you?” Aramis called over his shoulder as he sauntered away - to where, no one really knew, and no one ever really asked. Athos now sat alone at the end of the bar; he picked up his glass and held it to his lips, smirking just a tiny bit.

“ _Taste_ , that was good.”


	2. Strange and Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A beautiful woman on one's couch is generally a good thing. Until she tries to rip someone's throat out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [comehitherashes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ComeHitherAshes/pseuds/ComeHitherAshes) for beta reading!

The last thing d’Artagnan expected to find was a woman sitting on his couch.

It was well past two AM by the time he had staggered to the front of his building, pleasantly drunk from the five Jack and Cokes he’d consumed. The group had stayed at The Garrison long enough that they were chased out by the bartender who had slipped him the free drink earlier. James had attempted to protest, but had rather lost face when confronted with the man’s tree-trunk biceps, the wicked scar over his eye and the surprising sharpness of his teeth only adding to the “big scary bouncer” image.

Because the elevator was still out of order –  he suspected it would never be _in_ order –  he had to climb the stairs to his third-floor flat, all the while thinking about the man he had locked eyes with at the bar counter. To the way he’d sat quietly at the bar all night, sipping that dark-red fluid too thick to be wine from a shot glass. The look in his eyes, the one that said to d’Artagnan _I have a story to tell, a story of centuries…_

He was being stupid, he knew it. He was drunk, and reading entirely too much into an exchanged glance with some lonely son of a bitch at a bar.

But he would have been an outright liar if he didn’t say he almost felt a little disappointed when the man had disappeared shortly after one in the morning, with little more than a muttered word to the bartender.

D’Artagnan was at his door, though he’d been so busy thinking that he hadn’t realized he was there. His key scraped in the lock, and he opened the door, surprised that his living room was lit. For a split second, he thought it was because he’d actually had the forethought to leave a light on so his apartment wasn’t pitch-black when he got home. It wasn’t until immediately after the door had closed behind him he realized the reason the light was on was because there was a woman sitting on his couch.

She was a few years older than d’Artagnan, probably around thirty if he had to guess - not that she bore any real sign of her age, her skin was smooth and flawless, like ancient Grecian marble. But there was a look of experience to her, a slant of her luminous green eyes and a fullness of her crimson lips that said she was not some young twenty-something fresh out of university as d’Artagnan was. She wore a tight black tube of a dress and heels that couldn’t have been any shorter than six inches. The curled ends of her dark hair brushed her bare shoulders, and a black ribbon choker encircled her pale throat. She smirked when d’Artagnan jumped, startled by her presence.

“Hope you don’t mind, I let myself in,” she purred with a voice that resembled some sort of dark cherry liqueur, husky and sweet.

d’Artagnan really didn’t know what to make of her, but it wasn’t everyday he came home to find a beautiful woman in his flat. He cleared his throat, trying to simultaneously organize his thoughts and keep a certain part of his body from drawing too much attention to itself. “Uh...who are you?

“I’m whoever you want me to be,” she told him, standing up – God, that dress and those heels made her legs look like they went on forever. It was starting to get hard for d’Artagnan to hide the fact that he was most certainly aroused. She eyed him up and down, taking him in with such long, slow strokes of her eyes that he felt as if she were undressing him without laying a finger on him, and finally, she gave him a coy smile. “You may call me Milady.”

“M-Milady…” He nodded, slowly, wondering why she was the one that looked like the cat that got the cream. “Okay. Um...how did you get into my apartment? How’d you even know where my apartment is?”

“There’s no need for such questions.” She crossed the room to him, taking his wrist in one hand. Her grip was stronger than he expected, and her fingers were surprisingly cold. “Come, sit down. I promise, my intentions are…well, they’re certainly not _good_ , but I doubt you’ll be protesting.”

“This is from the guys, right?” he asked, as she dragged him to the couch and shoved him down. He went without much of a fight, more shocked than anything else. “James, and...a-and Sean and them? Down at the office? They sent you up here?”

How they knew where his apartment was, well, he figured they might have gotten it off his files at work or something; Human Resources wasn’t the vault they claimed to be. How they got a key to let this Milady – who he could only assume was some kind of call-girl or something – in, well...that was of some concern to him.

But then Milady sat down in his lap, and all the blood flowing to his brain was immediately redirected to another part of his body.

“Mm, that’s for me to know…” she purred, fingering d’Artagnan’s tie, which he’d forgotten he’d never taken off after work, “and you to find out.”

“It’s...it’s not even my birthday…” d’Artagnan mumbled, his already-hazy mind going even hazier as Milady slid her hand down the length of his tie, her fingers cold enough that he could feel them through his shirt. In contrast, he felt as if he was burning up, every chilled touch only making him hotter.

“Doesn’t have to be,” she told him in a whisper, as if it was their little secret. “It’s still going to be the best night of your life.”

She undid his tie and, in a surprisingly quick move, brought it over his eyes, blindfolding him with it. While he was certainly no blushing virgin – he’d had a few girlfriends in high school and college, and often, one thing led to another led to clothes on the floor of his dorm room – he’d never really experimented with something like this, and it made his heart beat a little faster in his chest.

“Don’t worry,” Milady said, having finished knotting the tie around his head, now focusing on undoing the buttons on his shirt. “You’re alright.”

“I kn-know,” he stammered, shivering slightly as she undid the top button, then, another, her chilly fingers brushing over his bare chest in a stroke that brought goosebumps in its wake. “I...wasn’t expecting the, uh, the blindfold.”

“It just makes things more of a…” She trailed off, leaning in to press a hot kiss to d’Artagnan’s lips, before whispering a final word against his lips, “surprise.”

It sent a bolt of heat straight through him.

He reached up blindly, finally taking her face in his hands to pull her back in for another kiss. For as strange as it had been to find a call-girl sitting on his couch when he’d gotten home from the bar at two A.M., he certainly wasn’t going to complain about it. Not right now, with this gorgeous, experienced woman perched on his lap in a way that had made him delightfully yet painfully hard, kissing him as if he was the last man she would ever kiss.

From a strange man at the bar to a strange woman in his apartment. It seemed tonight was a night of strangers holding sway over d’Artagnan.

Milady broke away from his lips, kissing a path along his stubbly jaw, nipping at his ear and sending another shiver through him. He bucked his hips, more out of instinct than anything else, and she laughed, breath warm against his ear.

“Goodness, are we eager?”

He might have flushed if he’d had any sanity left. “A l-little…”

“Oh,” she purred, and he could imagine that she was wearing the sultriest pout that had ever existed, “but the best is still yet to come.”

She had unbuttoned his shirt completely whilst kissing her way up his jaw, and she reached down between them. For a split second, d’Artagnan thought that she was going to pull his shirt from his trousers. Instead, she placed her hand directly between his legs, over the now-obvious bulge in his trousers, a move that pulled a strangled cry of surprise and delight from his throat. He squirmed against her, and she placed a hand under his chin, tilting his head back and to the side.

“Shhh, patience,” she purred, pressing a kiss to his neck, her hand firm under his chin and even firmer between his legs. “Touch me.”

He reached up, unsure of where to begin, but finally settled on her throat and chest, smoothing his fingers first over the silkiness of the ribbon around her throat, then over the smooth expanses of her skin. She must have liked it, for she gave a purr of content against his throat. He kept exploring, stroking his hands over her breasts, then down her sides, resting on her waist and then taking in the curve of her hips. When his hands came to rest on her upper thighs, however, she removed one hand from its spot between his legs, effortlessly catching both of his wrists, pinning his hands between the two of them. He made a noise somewhere between confused and disappointed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll let you touch again later,” she said, the soothing tone of her voice at odds to the strength of her hold. “For now, though, hands still.”

“O-Okay…”

Her lips were at his neck again, teasing across the skin. Finally, she stopped at one spot, pressing a fierce kiss there, then, a nip at the skin. d’Artagnan shivered again, flexing his fingers, needing his hands to be free despite not knowing what to do with them once they were freed. Milady, however, held his hands together with her own, not breaking her grip. She opened her mouth against d’Artagnan’s neck, teasing a spot on his skin with her tongue, priming it, he thought, for another kiss.

She sank her teeth into his neck.

All at once, pleasure turned to pain; the hand holding his wrists turning to iron as she refused to let go of him. The hand that she had tilted his neck back with had now seized his hair, pulling on it to keep his head back. He cried out in pain, struggling against her as she sank her top teeth impossibly deep in his neck, her bottom teeth digging in to anchor herself. That warm tongue that had licked his skin moments ago now lapped at the beads of blood welling up at the punctures, squeezing around her teeth to roll, hot and sickening, down d’Artagnan’s neck before being lapped up.

Somewhere nearby, glass shattered. d’Artagnan had about two seconds to contemplate exactly how screwed he was, considering he now had a burglar breaking in as well as a mentally-disturbed call-girl with her teeth deep enough in his neck to draw blood, when the sensation of being bitten turned into the sensation of someone pulling on Milady - and, by extension, him. For a moment, she stayed stubbornly stuck to his neck, like an overly large leech. Then, with a shriek, she was pulled off and, judging by the crash that followed, thrown bodily across the room. From the stinging sensation in his scalp, d’Artagnan could only figure she had taken some of his hair with her.

Strong hands were on his neck, pushing his head aside, running cold fingers over the bleeding wound on his neck. “Fuck,” his savior hissed - and then, was gone with a shout and a crash. Though d’Artagnan was still blindfolded and unable to see, he could only guess that a fight had broken out between Milady and his rescuer. He reached up to fumble with the tie, realizing it was knotted a lot tighter than he thought it was, and pulling at it only made it worse.

There was a thud, as though something had been slammed against the floor. The high-pitched gasp that accompanied it made him think it was Milady, or some part of her.

“Anne,” a male voice sneered.

“Athos,” Milady replied, disgust in her voice. “Still out playing the vigilante?”

“Still seducing innocents and sucking them dry?”

The dark amusement in Milady’s voice was rich and throaty. “He didn’t seem to mind too much.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” The man - Athos - didn’t sound convinced. Milady’s only response was to laugh.

“And what brought you here? Following the boy, Athos?” d’Artagnan could almost hear her smirking. “I’m surprised. I always thought you were the boring one in the bedroom, but...if you’re expanding your preferences, I might have been wrong.”

There was a scuffle again; Athos grunted in pain at one point, someone hissed like a very large and pissed-off cat, and then, the floor rattled as someone – whom, he couldn’t say, he was still struggling with his blindfold – was slammed against it. d’Artagnan swore he heard the floorboards cracking.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I wasn’t following the boy. I was following you.”

“All these years and you still can’t resist me.”

Athos snorted –  a very undignified sound. “Hardly. I don’t trust you, Anne. No one does.”

“Oh, now that’s harsh.”

“Your reputation precedes you.”

“Perhaps someone has been making up stories?”

Athos sighed, exasperated, and d’Artagnan struggled to undo the knot in his tie, wanting to know just what the hell was going on, know who was winning – and whether he had any chance of getting out of this alive.

“What would have happened to the boy if I hadn’t found you, hm? Would you have sucked him dry and left his body to rot? Or...would you have turned him into one of your little diseased pets?”

Athos’s sentence ended in a thump and a low groan; d’Artagnan could only assume that he’d been hit by Milady, somehow.

“What does it matter to you? Milady asked bitterly. “There is no us, Athos. We’ve chosen different paths in life. I let you make your choices, what business do you have in mine?”

“You made it my business when you started leaving dead bodies behind in apartments to rot for days,” Athos snarled. “And maybe I get tired of dealing with the messes your goddamn pets make because you just let them do as they please.”

“You have no power over me, Athos. You haven’t in a long time.”

“And you have no power _here_ , Anne. You need to leave.”

Again, a scuffle. d’Artagnan finally managed to loosen the knot and undo the tie around his face, just in time to get hauled to his feet by a pair of strong arms on the front of his unbuttoned shirt. It was Milady, hauling him to his feet, her green eyes now an icy blue instead, blood smeared on her lips and chin - his blood, he realized with a sickening lurch of his stomach.

“Not without this tasty little morsel,” she said triumphantly.

d’Artagnan expected to be dragged bodily over to the balcony, the doors of which were now broken – that was the glass that had shattered earlier. He was ready. He was going to put up a fight.

But before he could do so much as throw a punch, Milady threw him over her shoulder like he was a sack of flour, bolting for the ruined doors with a startling amount of speed. She had almost cleared the balcony when, with a jerk, she was brought to a halt, and d’Artagnan with her. A shriek of anger pierced the air, about two seconds before whoever or whatever had stopped her –  most likely, Athos – pulled back and sent the both of them across the living room. d’Artagnan hit the floor on his back, hard enough to force the air from his lungs, and skidded across the hardwood. He only stopped when his skull collided with the corner of the coffee table.

His consciousness dissolved for a moment, color swirling away like water down a drain. By the time he came back around, it was to a terrifying silence. Groaning, he rolled over onto his stomach, the motion making him dizzy and wanting to vomit from the pain that lanced through his head.

Milady was on the floor by the shattered balcony doors, pinned down under the man that d’Artagnan could only presume was Athos.  He hovered over her, hands pinning her wrists to the floor on either side of her head, his knees resting precariously on her own to keep her from using her hips to buck him off. Despite the daze in his mind, d’Artagnan recognized Athos, recognized the mane of shaggy hair and the dark-red button down with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow despite the chilly early-March weather.

It was the man from the bar. Athos, his savior, was the man from the bar.

“I could kill you right here, Anne.”

There was no malice in his voice. Despite his vicious words, he didn’t sound as though he really meant he’d do it. Hell, if anything he sounded...resigned, almost, and maybe a little wistful? d’Artagnan was starting to wonder if he’d unwittingly gotten caught in the middle of something personal.

“You won’t do it,” Milady sneered.

“I did it last time.”

“And a shit job you did of it, did you even bother sticking around to make sure I was dead?” Her laugh was cold. “You couldn’t bear to sit there and see what you’d done. You ran away before the job was done.”

“That was then.”

“And how has four centuries changed any of that, Athos?”

Christ. This was _personal_. This was four hundred years worth of _personal_. d’Artagnan wondered, drunk as he was, now possibly with a concussion and a hell of an ache in his back, if he could crawl out of his apartment unnoticed by these two.

“By all rights, I really should kill you,” Athos said, pressing Milady’s wrists harder into the floor. She grit her teeth, but did not cry out.

“Then do it. And this time, do it right.”

There was a moment, tense and still, where the three of them stayed exactly where they were, Milady pinned under Athos, Athos staring down at her, his mane of shaggy hair hiding his face, and d’Artagnan, frozen, wondering how this was all going to end and if he could get out of it before he got caught in the crossfire again.

And then, all at once, the tension drained out of Athos, and he let go of Anne’s wrists.

“It’s not my place. It’s for the Elders to decide.”

“Fucking coward,” Milady spat, propping herself up on her elbows, wearing an expression caught between the satisfaction of being right and her own disgust with Athos. “I knew you wouldn’t have the balls to do it.”

Athos grabbed Milady, not even bothering to pick her up so much as drag her through the doors and onto the balcony. Horror churning in his stomach, d’Artagnan watched as Athos swung Milady up into his arms, like a man carrying his bride over the threshold, and then threw her over the balcony railing before she even had time to shriek. d’Artagnan’s apartment was only about three floors up, the fall wouldn’t necessarily be fatal, but it would certainly not be something Milady would be getting up from on her own. And Athos had done it without even so much as a second thought. He leaned over the balcony railing, nodded once, curtly, then strode back into d’Artagnan’s apartment, muttering to himself.

“Takes care of one problem…”

d’Artagnan tried to push himself to all fours, fearful that he might be the next one over the balcony. He didn’t get much further than on his elbows and knees before a wave of dizziness washed over him, making him groan. He sagged forward, only to be caught by a pair of strong arms sliding under his, locking at the top of his back to hold him up.

“Easy...easy, you took a pretty hard knock to the head…”

Athos. How had Athos gotten over here so quickly? Last d’Artagnan remembered, he’d been closer to the balcony doors, and...that had only been a second or two ago. d’Artagnan looked up, trying to ask that question, only to have the words die on his lips as fear as cold as ice water flooded his veins.

Instead of the stormy blue-gray-green that they had been when the two of them had locked eyes at the bar, Athos’s eyes were now an icy, unforgiving blue, just like Milady’s.


	3. Mind Over Matter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Compulsion works on just about everything. When it fails, idle threats are also excellent motivators.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [ComeHitherAshes](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ComeHitherAshes/pseuds/ComeHitherAshes) for beta reading!
> 
> Lyrics borrowed from "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails

d’Artagnan had just enough time to draw breath to scream when a hand clapped over his mouth. Athos’s hand. Now, unsupported from one side, he sagged lopsidedly in Athos’s grip, staring at him in wide-eyed apprehension and fear.

“Don’t scream,” Athos ordered.

Don’t scream? What the hell else was he supposed to do? A deranged call-girl had attempted to tear his throat out with her teeth. A man had broken into his apartment – through a _window_ , despite the fact that he lived on the third floor and there was no fire escape. His apartment had been torn apart by what appeared to be a marital spat the likes of which Jerry Springer himself couldn’t imagine. And now, his savior was glaring him down with eyes like blue fire, telling him not to scream, his lips pulled up in a snarl to one corner and baring...Christ, were those _fangs_?

Athos just narrowed those unreal eyes and asked,“Are you going to scream?”

d’Artagnan shook his head, too afraid to answer with anything else. 

“Good.” Athos removed his hand, and as soon as he did, a very childish whimper escaped d’Artagnan, all that was left of the scream he’d promised Athos wouldn’t happen. He didn’t have the forethought to be embarrassed by such a pathetic noise. He was a little too focused on those inhumanly blue eyes and those teeth that were too sharp and pointed to be real.

If Athos noticed him whimpering, he made no comment about it. Instead, he merely lifted d’Artagnan’s chin, tilting his head to the side and murmuring, “She got you pretty good.”

Whether it was Athos’ gaze or the ragged holes near his jugular, d’Artagnan’s skin burned. The bite wound had stopped oozing, but the drying blood was itchy. Athos’ icy fingers drifted across his cheek to brush a few strands of hair aside, frowning at d’Artagnan’s temple. “Was that from the coffee table?”

“Huh?” D’Artagnan reached up with a shaky hand, probing his forehead. His fingers made contact with a gash at his temple, and pain lanced through his head, making him squeeze his eyes closed and grit his teeth. “Fuck!”

“Sorry about that,” Athos apologized, though he didn’t sound particularly contrite. “Had to stop her from taking off with you.”

d’Artagnan nodded, eyes still closed and a headache spiking in his skull, resigning himself to the thought that if Athos was going to kill him, he would have done it already.

And honestly, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop it anyway.

Athos’ soft, husky voice slipped past his concerns, “Are you going to be okay?”

He wasn’t sure. The encroaching darkness was coming back, creeping into his brain like overgrown vines, threatening to wrap around and drag him back under again. After what he’d just witnessed though, he was more than a little willing to go with it.

Maybe this was actually all a dream and his body was trying to wake up, surely that explained everything.

This time, the husky voice was more insistent, “Kid, don’t go to sleep on me.”

A part of him was very compelled to obey, and if his head hadn’t been killing him he might very well have done absolutely anything that melodious voice told him to. His mind lost the battle and he sagged forward, head coming to rest on something solid, unyielding. Athos’s shoulder, perhaps? It was a welcome pillow, and his head felt really heavy.

“Come on, stay with me.”

Everything disappeared into black.

* * *

 “For fuck’s sake.”

d’Artagnan was out cold, sagged against Athos’s shoulder and probably now bleeding on his shirt. Apparently, compulsion only extended so far, and it did not apply to head wounds. He sighed, tilting d’Artagnan’s head to the side to get another look at the puncture to his neck. Ragged holes, and the skin looked red and irritated under the dried blood. Possibly a little inflamed.

Either Anne was exceedingly rough with him or a head injury wasn’t his only problem.

Whatever the case was, Athos couldn’t take the kid to the hospital. They’d ask too many questions - _how did he come by the injury on his neck? How did he hit his head? Does he have a concussion? Are you related to him?_ None of those were questions he really cared to answer - not that anyone would believe the answers to half of them, anyways.

Fortunately, there was someone Athos could take him to – and, if Athos was exceedingly lucky, he’d be back by now and not still gallivanting about. 

Hitching d’Artagnan up over his shoulder, with a firm grip on his legs, Athos stood and headed for the balcony, taking a moment to pull the ruined doors closed behind him. Once the doors were closed, he glanced over the railing. The street below looked quiet, and it seemed that Milady had gotten his message loud and clear and had taken off after he’d thrown her off the balcony. He threw one leg over the balcony, then the other, sliding off the railing and dropping down three stories. He landed with a cat’s gentle grace, hoping that the soft landing wouldn’t jar the boy back awake. 

He cursed silently when he heard a groan.

“Whaaa..? Where..?”

“Just go back to sleep, kid,” he sighed, though the firm, melodious tone of compulsion bled into his sigh. There was a soft groan, and then, d’Artagnan fell silent and still again. Athos turned around to head back in the direction he’d come from, where he hoped his someone would be, so he could deal with this mess and get the kid home before he came to or the sun came up. He stopped short at the sight of what appeared to be a homeless man staring at him, mouth agape and eyes wide. Apparently, he’d seen a little too much.

“You didn’t see anything.”

All at once, the man’s expression went blank, his jaw slack and his eyes boring straight ahead in a thousand-yard stare. Athos nodded curtly, pushing past the man and taking off as fast as he dared to without being caught by any other late-night wanderers.

He estimated The Garrison was about a fifteen-minute walk from d’Artagnan’s place – although seeing as he made the trip in less than five, he wasn’t sure he could be a proper judge. The back alley was mercifully empty, and Athos rushed down the flight of narrow concrete stairs that led to the cellar door, taking them two at a time. He figured most people assumed that the cellar was merely for storage, and, to some small extent, they were right. There _was_ storage space in the cellar, but it was the tiniest corner, at best – less of a storage space and more of a storage corner, or cabinet. The rest of the lower level was devoted to something else entirely.

He unlocked the weather-beaten outer door, letting himself into the narrow little hallway beyond and pulling the door closed behind him. As soon as it was locked, he turned around – carefully, so as not to bash d’Artagnan’s head into a wall – and unlocked the door in front of him.

Beyond the door was an apartment, which he, Porthos, and Aramis had set up in the basement of the building years ago, before Treville had converted it into a bar for humans and vampires alike. It made sense for them to live in the basement – Treville had owned the building for decades, and while he didn’t always personally make use of the building, he liked having someone he trusted there at all times to make sure whoever was using the building was treating it well. It also saved Athos, Aramis, and Porthos the trouble of having to worry about day-proofing an apartment, since it was completely underground. Aside from the door to get in and out and a few small windows they’d long since painted and hung curtains over, they were shielded from the sunlight.

He hadn’t even opened the door to the apartment when he heard music trickling through. Not just any music, but, of all things, one particular fucking Nine Inch Nails song that Athos knew meant keep out of Aramis’s room for a few hours, which was the last fucking thing he needed right now.

“Porthos,” he groaned as he opened the door and stepped inside, “please, I am begging you, tell me Aramis isn’t playing ‘Closer’ in there.”

“Mmm, ‘fraid he is,” Porthos called from their tiny little closet of a kitchen - a room Athos had only in the past few years admitted was necessary, and he admitted it grudgingly, at best.

“He has someone over?”

“Uh, no, but...I dun think he wants to be disturbed, if you catch my meanin’.” Porthos stepped out of the kitchen and came to a dead stop at the sight of Athos dropping d’Artagnan onto their couch. “Is that - ?”

“Yes.”

“Why is ‘e - ?”

“Don’t ask. Just...I need Aramis to take a look at him. Now. And if that means interrupting him in the middle of his _personal time_ , well, so be it.” Athos started down the hall to Aramis’s room, brushing past a still-confused Porthos and muttering, “It’s not like he can’t pick up where he left off later.”

There were three bedrooms tucked at the end of the hallway; Porthos’s was the first, the door half-open and the low light of a lamp spilling out into the darkened hallway. Aramis was right next door to Porthos, and Athos’s room was across the hallway, in what had been designated the master suite due to its size. Aramis had complained a bit about Athos getting the master suite, but, in the end, Athos was the oldest, and Aramis knew better than to fight him on it. Currently, Aramis’s door was firmly closed, and, sure enough, that particular song was drifting through and it was all Athos could do not to bang his head repeatedly against the door. Instead, he sighed, knocking firmly on the door three times. 

“Aramis…” 

“ _Help me, tear down my reason…_ ” 

“Aramis, I know you’re alone in there.” 

“ _Help me, it’s your sex I can smell..._ ” 

“Aramis, I need you out here. Now. This isn’t up for discussion.” 

“ _Help me, you make me perfect…_ ” 

“Aramis, I’m not going away. I know you can hear me in there. I really need you to get yourself together and open the door.”

“ _Help me become somebody else…_ ”

“Alright. Fine. I’ll take the door off its hinges, then. So be it.”

“Hang on just a fucking second!” Aramis screeched, drowning out Trent Reznor, much to Athos’s relief. There was the sound of pants being zipped, Aramis cursing quietly as he did so, and a moment later, the lock clicked and the door opened. Aramis was shirtless, and his bare chest was shiny with a thin layer of sweat. His cheeks were flushed – a feat impossible for any vampire but a recently- and well-fed one –  and in the dimness of the hallway, his normally dark eyes glowed impossibly blue.

Athos had to admit, it wasn’t a bad look on him.

“I thought you knew the music meant I was a little, ah, busy,” Aramis grouched.

“I do. I’ve got something pressing I need help with.” 

“Oh, do you now?” Aramis smirked. “Well, why didn’t you say so? I’d have made sure the sheets were fresh. Lit a candle. Maybe strewn some rose petals?”

Leave it to Aramis to make that innuendo – and make it sound so damn promising, as well. Candles? Rose petals? Aramis had the art of romance down to a science. It was his understanding that, after all these years, Aramis’s passes at him were more in jest than anything else. 

But sometimes, he entertained the notion of taking up on them. Those ideas would almost immediately be shut down by four hundred years’ worth of emotional baggage, courtesy of his ex-wife, but...for half a second, half of a glorious second, he’d think seriously about them.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Athos sighed. “Living room. Now.”

He left it at that, heading for the living room again, hearing Aramis curse and follow after him - as he knew Aramis would, he was always too damn curious for his own good. In the time it had taken Athos to drag Aramis from his room, Porthos had taken a seat in one of the chairs near the couch, watching d’Artagnan’s unconscious form with something that looked like both suspicion and apprehension. Aramis skidded to a halt at the end of the hallway, eyes going wide at the sight of the human boy sprawled across their couch. 

“Athos, is that..?”

“It’s the kid from the bar earlier, yeah,” Porthos filled in. 

“Uh-huh.” Aramis nodded once. “And why is he unconscious on our couch?”

“He’s been bitten.”

“ _Dios Mio_ , Athos,” Aramis groaned, “please tell me you didn’t…”

“I did no such thing.” Athos scowled at Aramis, trying to appear more pissed off than he was to cover up the fact that Aramis’s comment stung quite a bit. He knew he’d been careless in the past, but he had been doing so well for so long. “By the time I got to him, he was already hurt.”

“Who did it?” Porthos asked. Aramis was already over at the couch, turning d’Artagnan onto his back and tilting his head to the side. He gave a low whistle when he spotted the gash on d’Artagnan’s forehead.

“I’m going to need to stitch that up. Who attacked him, Athos?” 

Athos sighed, sinking into a chair on the other side of the couch, suddenly feeling every bit the four-hundred-plus years old he was. He knew the reaction he was going to get, and he knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. He supposed, maybe, he deserved it, for not having dealt with this problem properly all those years ago.

_You couldn’t bear to sit there and see what you’d done. You ran away before the job was done._

As if he needed any more beratement tonight, after her.

“Athos?” 

Porthos and Aramis were staring at him expectantly. He sighed, running a hand through his hair and deliberately avoiding their gazes. 

“It was Anne.” 

Aramis swore a blue streak in Spanish, quickly turning his attention back to d’Artagnan’s abused neck. Porthos frowned, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, practically staring Athos down. 

“I thought the Red Duke had her on a pretty tight leash.”

“She’s not a dog,” Athos snapped bitterly.

“No, she’s just a dangerous, bloodsucking predator with a personality bordering on sociopathic,” Aramis remarked from the couch. “Was she trying to turn him?”

“I don’t know, she didn’t stay to chat,” Athos sniped. How deep’s the bite?” 

“It’s close for turning, but it’s not quite deep enough.” Aramis flicked his hair out of his eyes. “If she was trying to turn him, I’d say he dodged a bullet.” 

Somehow, that didn’t make Athos feel better. He nodded solemnly, sinking further into the chair and still feeling very much so four centuries old. Aramis sent Porthos into the kitchen for a wet paper towel to wipe the blood off, then vacated his spot next to d’Artagnan to come perch on the arm of Athos’s chair instead. 

“It’s not your fault.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.”

“ _Dios_ , what did she say to you, to make you feel that way?”

Athos sighed, his fingers coming up to massage his temples. “I’d rather not discuss it. Shouldn’t you be helping the boy?” 

“Speaking of,” Porthos interrupted, coming back in and pressing a wet paper towel into Aramis’s hands, “what do we do about ‘im? We can’t just keep ‘im here.” 

“I mean, at this point, why not?” Aramis knelt back next to d’Artagnan, dabbing at the drying blood on his forehead. “God knows what he saw between Athos and his, ah...charming ex-wife.”

“I’d rather him think that was some kind of hallucination brought on by one too many heavy-handed Jack and Cokes, if it’s all the same,” Athos remarked, with something of a pointed glance in Porthos’s direction.

“Besides, you know Treville’s rules. ‘E don’t want humans hangin’ around too long.”

Aramis made a face. “He let Constance stick around.”

“That’s because Constance is nothing if not persistent,” Athos said, worrying his thumb between his teeth, an idea gnawing at his brain.

“She’s a special case,” Porthos remarked with a shrug. “Rules say the kid’s gotta go.”

“Porthos, I can’t just dump him somewhere,” Aramis protested. “Especially not if he has a concussion. He needs to be looked after. Head injuries are tricky, and inadequate care could do this poor kid lasting damage.”

“Tha’s awfully thoughtful of you,” Porthos teased.

“I’m not heartless.” Aramis’s grin was sharp with a hint of what might be considered self-loathing. “Most of the time.”

“I have a thought,” Athos cut in. Aramis turned to look at him, the paper towel he was cleaning d’Artagnan’s neck with now stained pink.

“Oh?”

“If we ask nicely enough, Constance might take him in. Just for a day or two, to make sure he doesn’t have any serious brain damage.”

Porthos raised an eyebrow. “D’you think Constance would do it?”

“Constance is the kind of person who brought every stray or injured animal home to look after as a child,” Athos reminded him. “I think she’d be willing to look after him for a day or two. All we have to do is ask nicely.”

“Well, I leave that in your capable hands,” Aramis said, turning his attention back to d’Artagnan, now looking to the wound on his forehead. “Porthos, can you go get my kit?”

“My hands?” Athos wrinkled his nose. “What makes me the one capable of asking Constance that?” 

Aramis smirked, taking his small medical kit as Porthos returned with it. “Because she likes you the best.”


	4. Eyes Like Blue Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> D'Artagnan is not the only one who's had a bad night...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize greatly for the delay, which happened for various reasons, including getting a new full-time job but not leaving my part-time job, not being able to locate my dear beta-reader, and also reasons of general fuckery from my brain. But I've been "snowed in" for almost a week now, I'm bored, and the chapter is done, so I figured I'd made you guys suffer the wait long enough.
> 
> Hope you're still out there and you enjoy the chapter!

For having been dragged from her bed at 4 AM to Athos all but begging her to let them drop a concussed twenty-something in her apartment for a few days, Constance was a surprisingly good sport.

Granted, it meant that Athos had had to hunt down a Starbucks that was still open at this ungodly hour to bring Constance some frothy coffee beverage on pain of a very nasty and inconvenient wound if he showed up without it. But he had to give her credit - for a human, she put up with a surprising amount of shenanigans from him, Aramis, and Porthos, and she did it with a grace that surpassed her twenty-six years.

Which was why she was standing in the doorway of her spare bedroom, watching Aramis gently tuck an unconscious d’Artagnan into the twin bed as best as he could, given the fact that the bed was a good six inches too short for d’Artagnan’s lanky frame.

Constance gave him a probing look. “ _She_ did this, didn’t she?”

Athos frowned. He’d never intended for Constance to find out about Anne. He’d never intended for Constance to be anything, really. What he had failed to realize, however, was that saving the life of someone as stubborn and persistent as Constance made it hard to get rid of them. He’d learned that the hard way when Constance - then, a tiny thirteen-year-old with silvery braces and curly auburn hair scraped into a messy ponytail - turned up at The Garrison one night with a bag of homemade cookies, looking for “the man with the shaggy hair and the pointy teeth.”

“ _I wish I had taken a picture of the look on your face,_ ” Aramis had told him after he had sent Constance home with a warning not to come back.

Constance hadn’t stayed away, of course. The next night, Athos found her dozing on the steps of the bar at 11 PM and carted her back home, wondering how her parents never noticed her sneaking out. Three nights later, Athos returned to the apartment in the early hours of a cold, drizzling morning to find her huddled near the exterior door and shivering. Porthos and Aramis had been rather surprised to come in an hour later and find her wrapped in a blanket on the couch while Athos tried to towel her hair dry and warn her to stop coming around.

And yet, she came back.

She kept coming back, no matter how many times Athos told her not to. Even the day she’d come to him with an old library book, dog-earred on a page about vampires and asked if that was what he was; even after he had snarled at her with fangs and eyes like blue fire and told her to stay away from them.

Eventually, he gave up on trying to get her to not come back.

And so, Constance had become something of a friend. But it was more than that; Athos would never admit it, not even under pain of death, but she was almost like a little sister or a daughter to him, Aramis, and Porthos. They had watched her grow, from the tiny spitfire of a thirteen-year-old girl into a beautiful young woman whose taste in men made them worry greatly. The first time she’d come to them, twenty years old, with a request to spend the night on their couch and a split lip courtesy of her boyfriend Jacques, Athos had almost gone and hunted the man down. He didn’t because Constance begged him not to. Suffice to say, however, after she had dozed off on the couch, Jacques Bonacieux had gotten a rude awakening from three blue-eyed, white-fanged figures who warned him what would happen if he ever raised a hand to his girlfriend again.

Unfortunately, she stayed with Bonacieux, even getting engaged to the man. He never hit her again, but Athos knew, from the downturn of Constance’s lips and the way the light in her eyes dimmed whenever she spoke of him, that he hadn’t been treating her kindly. He also knew that trying to have that discussion was a good way to start a fight with Constance, so he had let it lie until finally, mercifully, Constance had had enough of Jacques’s shit and had broken off the engagement herself.

Athos had been quite glad to see the man go.

“Athos?”

“I might have had something to do with the concussion,” he admitted, a touch sheepish. “But, yes, she did attack him.”

“What did you do?” Constance asked, frowning at him from over the lid of her coffee cup.

“Anne tried to escape with him. I...stopped her…”

“And gave the boy a concussion in the process,” Aramis helpfully pointed out.

Athos stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Not my intention.”

“At any rate,” Constance sighed, “I can look after him for a few days, I suppose. Make sure he’s not seriously hurt.”

“You’re a saint,” Aramis said from the bed.

“I have to be, to put up with you three.”

“You were the one who decided you wanted to be friends with us, I’d like to point that out,” Aramis told her with a bit of a grin.

“Yeah, yeah, get out and let me get back to sleep before I change my mind,” Constance grumbled, ushering them towards the front door of her apartment. She hadn’t turned on any lights, which would have made her living room - still a maze of moving boxes, in the wake of her getting her own place after breaking up with Jacques - impossible to navigate, but Athos and Aramis’s enhanced vision made it easy.

They stopped at the door, Aramis looking to Constance, surprisingly serious. “Call us if he takes a turn for the worse, alright?”

“I’ll call the hospital, first,” Constance informed him. “But I will call you. Just...don’t burn yourself to a crisp trying to get over here, okay?”

Aramis smirked. “Yes, Mum.”

“Don’t give me that.” Constance shooed them both out the door. “Now go on. I don’t want you two getting caught in the sunlight.”

* * *

 “You know, you have no one to blame for this mess but yourself.”

The vampire known as Milady to most - and Anne to only a select few - scowled at the dry voice that intruded on her private chambers and her private thoughts. She turned to face the man who had addressed her, having hoped he’d retired for the day by the time she’d gotten in.

“I had hoped you were asleep.”

“It’s hard to sleep through the racket you made coming in the door.” Richelieu regarded his nails for a moment, then, his cold gray eyes moved to her. “It’s even harder to sleep when there’s the smell of fresh blood.”

“You didn’t think I was going to come back without having fed, did you?”

“Fresh _vampire_ blood,” Richelieu pointed out. “You didn’t actually feed, did you?”

“I was feeding.” Anne turned away from Richelieu, making a face, though she couldn’t quite say what the emotion was behind it. “I got...interrupted.”

“Oh, I can’t imagine who did that.” Richelieu’s voice was dry and acerbic; it made her purse her lips. After the kind of night she’d had, all she wanted was to sit and lick her wounds - both physical and not - in private, not listen to a lecture from him.

“It’s not your business,” she informed him.

“It seems that your ex-husband has taken to playing vigilante. And he’s got you as a target.” Though she was facing away from him, she could feel Richelieu’s cold, steely gaze boring into her back. “This could be...problematic.”

“I can handle him.”

“This wouldn’t be nearly as problematic if you cleaned up after your messes,” he snarled. “As I’ve told you to do, time and again.”

“I’m hardly the only vampire that doesn’t clean up after themselves,” she snapped. “As I recall, you used to have quite a problem with that yourself.”

A small voice in her head warned her that her remark would cost her. However, she was exhausted and hungry and emotionally raw from the encounter with Athos, as all encounters with Athos tended to leave her. That small voice had gone ignored in her attempt to regain some footing and not feel like a scolded child in front of Richelieu. She regretted that remark, however, when his eyes flashed ice-blue, and in a moment, he was on her, hand around her throat, forcing her to crane her neck up, to look into those eyes like blue fire.

“We are living in a vastly different time from that, _Milady_ ,” he hissed. “We no longer rule the darkness as we once did. And until such time that we do, you will follow my orders or you will regret it, do I make myself clear.”

She gave as much of a curt nod as she could, neck still held in a vice-like grip. It seemed to appease Richelieu, however, for he let go of her neck.

“If you continue to neglect your messes, I will be forced to do something you will regret,” he warned her. “And if your _Athos_ continues to be a problem in your life, then I will take care of him. Personally.”

He swept from the room, his robes - an artifact of a time long passed - trailing behind him, leaving Anne alone once again, an unsettled feeling gnawing at her. A feeling brought about not by Richelieu’s threat to cast her out, but of the threat to “take care” of Athos.

Some part of her felt relieved by that notion. Athos’s insistence on being such a martyr was really an insult to their kind; they were not suffering, they were powerful, mighty, creatures to be feared, even in the day and age where their kind was a novelty that represented tooth-rottingly sugary cereal and taught small children how to count in a bad Transylvanian accent. His whole act of aloofness and being a noble creature of darkness was really quite annoying.

But at the same time...there was something inherently wrong about the idea of Richelieu getting involved with Athos. Richelieu was old - older than her, older still than Athos. If he saw her estranged husband - if he was even still that anymore - as a threat, she had little doubt he’d take care of it, and damn the consequences.

And, whatever he might have been, the fact remained that Athos was her demon, and her demon alone.

* * *

 d’Artagnan awoke to a pounding headache, and he wasn’t sure if it was the hangover or the concussion causing it.

He rolled over onto his belly, but doing that made everything spin, despite his eyes being closed. A wave of sickness rose in his belly, and he groaned, curling in on himself slightly.

A gentle hand scooped hair out of his face. “If you’re going to vomit, please do so in the bucket, it’ll be more pleasant for both of us.”

He flinched away from the unfamiliar hand holding his hair, the unfamiliar voice that had spoken to him in almost motherly tones, even if they did sound a bit exasperated. Doing so, however, made him feel even more nauseated and dizzy, and, as he folded in on himself with an arm wrapped around his stomach, the bucket in question was pressed under his chin.

“Do you think you’re going to need this?” the woman asked again, more insistently this time.

It wasn’t Milady. It had finally sunk into his dizzy, half-drunk brain that the woman caring for him was not the same woman who had tried to tear his throat out last night. He shook his head, and the bucket was removed. The creaking of the bedsprings told him that whoever was looking after him had gotten up.

“Let me close the blinds,” the voice said, and d’Artagnan was grateful for the running narrative when he still couldn’t see. The brightness in the room faded. “Better?”

He gave a grunt of approval, and the bedsprings creaked again as his caretaker sat down next to him, mercifully blocking out the dim light some more. He opened his eyes, squinting up at a pale face that smiled down at him.

“Hey, there you are,” she murmured softly. “I was wondering when you were going to come back around for me.”

She was maybe three or four years older than d’Artagnan, with a warm smile and patient blue eyes. Her auburn hair was pulled into a messy knot at the nape of her neck, and she was still in her pajamas, even though it was...what time was it? d’Artagnan didn’t even know.

In fact, he had no idea where he was. The bed he was tucked into was an unfamiliar twin bed, with sheets far cleaner than those on his own bed. The room wasn’t any room belonging in his apartment, either.

“Where..?”

“Shhh, easy,” she soothed, turning her attention to something on his head, brushing his hair aside. “Easy. Let me take a look at this cut, okay?”

“What..?” Her fingers probed along his hairline, until they hit a spot that sent pain lancing through his skull. He hissed, and she drew her fingers back, one hand pressing down on his chest as though trying to hold him in place on the bed.

“Alright, so it’s still a little sensitive. I figured it might be; it looks like you took a good hard knock to the head.”

“Where..?”

“You’re at my apartment,” she explained calmly. “My name’s Constance.”

He squinted up at her balefully, a million questions in mind. _Why was he in her apartment? Who was she? What time was it? Why did it feel like someone had dropped a cement block on his head?_

_What happened last night? Was it even real?_

He had the energy to ask approximately none of those questions.

“What...happened..?” he finally croaked.

“I know it’s all a little confusing,” she said. “But...well...hang on.”

She got up off the bed. d’Artagnan put his head back on the pillow, watching as she thumbed her phone for a moment, then put it to her ear, hooking a thumb into the waistband of her striped pajama pants as she waited.

Whoever was on the other end of the phone must have picked up and spoken, because Constance made a face, all furrowed brow and wrinkled nose. “Don’t take that tone with me. I know you’re not a morning person, but you could at least say hello.”

He strained to listen to the other end of the conversation, but it was a futile effort, especially when Constance turned away from him. “He’s awake, yes. Should I tell him about...what you told me?” A pause. Then, she moved the phone away from her head and winced slightly, before putting it back to her ear. “Alright, alright, keep your hair on, I won’t tell him. Should I take it that means to expect you to come around later?”

He wrinkled his brow. Who was planning on coming around? He remembered from last night, in brief snatches, the man from the bar, the man with the shaggy dark hair. How he’d turned up in d’Artagnan’s apartment, chased Milady off...how his eyes were so blue and so piercing, unnatural. Eyes like blue fire. But was that all real? That had been after he’d taken a hit to the head and more than a few Jack and Cokes, maybe he was imagining it? Maybe the whole scenario of two crazed, super-strong beings duking it out in his apartment had been a delusion of his half-drunk brain, and the concussion and the gash in his head had come from something far more mundane and embarrassing. Perhaps he’d cracked his head on the steps to Constance’s building, and she’d taken pity on him and brought him up to make sure he woke up the next morning.

The stiff, throbbing pain in the side of his neck, however, told him that was not the case in the slightest.

“Alright. I’ll see you around then.” Constance had clearly made arrangements for a visitor while he was trying to trick himself into believing he hadn’t seen some seriously weird shit in his apartment last night. “I’d say I’d put the kettle on, but...well, I don’t think that’d do you much good. Alright. I’ll see you then.”

She ended the call, then came and sat back down on d’Artagnan’s bed - well, her bed, really, this was her apartment, but trying to think about it like that made his head hurt too much. She offered him a sympathetic smile.

“So...I’ve been told to let the _experts_ fill you in on what happened.” She rolled her eyes, lips twitching up into a smirk of amusement. “But...we’ll have to wait for them. They should be here after dark. So until then, it’s just you and me.” She offered him a shrug and a sort of smile. “You’re probably not in the mood for breakfast, but would you care for a cup of tea?”

D’Artagnan still had a million questions - who had Constance been on the phone with? Why was he at her apartment? Who was coming to talk to him, and why weren’t they coming until after dark? But somehow, he knew he wasn’t going to get answers to any of these questions, not right now. So instead he settled back into the bed in resignation.

“That...sounds great,” he sighed.

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, you can [find me on Tumblr](http://thatdeadpoetgirl.tumblr.com)


End file.
